


Deals with The Stranger: Real or Bullshit?

by angel_deux



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, aka the Lannisters made a deal with the devil and brienne made the mistake of marrying into them, also in a related note: very anti-everyone-except-jaime-and-brienne, anyway watch this movie bc it rules, every tagged character is a trashbag in this story except for them, on that note: Brienne's husband is NOT Jaime in this, ready or not au, the JB is all very future/implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: Ready or Not AU. Brienne is excited to be getting married, even if she's a bit intimidated by the family she's marrying into. The Lannisters are absurdly wealthy, and she already doesn't feel like she belongs with them, especially with her husband's brother so clearly disgusted by the marriage.On the night of the wedding, she's told that in order to become an official part of the Lannister clan, she has to engage in a generations-old tradition. Pick a card out of a deck, and play whatever game is written on it.Brienne draws Hide and Seek.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 58
Kudos: 207





	Deals with The Stranger: Real or Bullshit?

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched Ready or Not, a movie people have been telling me to watch for ages, and almost immediately started working on this.
> 
> If you've seen the movie, I'm not sure this will be all that exciting, because I hit a lot of the same beats, especially when it comes to the Grace and Daniel/ JB interactions. If you haven't seen the movie, I really hope this makes sense regardless. I didn't want to recreate the entire thing, so I tried to hit the most important bits, and I skipped anything TOO gross. That being said, if you haven't seen the movie, you absolutely should, because it's amazing.
> 
> Anyway, heed the tags: every Lannister except Jaime is portrayed as an absolute dumpster fire in this! Also, obviously, this contains spoilers for the movie.

When it’s over, at the end, Brienne is the only one left alive. Her sliced-open cheek is still bleeding. The inside of her throat is raw from screaming, and she can still feel the burn from the rope that they tied around her neck to try and subdue her. She knows she will be left with more than just emotional scars after tonight.

Her wedding night.

The happiest night of her life.

The figure of The Stranger grows more visible the longer she stares at it, sitting in the chair at the head of the dining room table. After everything she’s been through tonight, the thing that shakes her the most is that the curse was real.

When Tywin Lannister told her the story about his ancestor’s deal with The Stranger and how it led to the generational wealth that has been passed down through the family ever since, always growing, she thought it was _metaphorical._

When the entire family started chasing her, hunting her through the mansion, she thought that they were just so obsessed with tradition, so mired in superstition, that they would rather kill her than risk the possibility that the story was true.

And when they said that failing to kill her would mean the end of everything, she had assumed that they meant the loss of their enormous fortune. Not…this.

Because she’s still alive, the Lannisters aren’t. They’re all around her, splattered on her, coating her and the rest of this room in blood and pulp and shapeless meat, and the worst part is that she doesn’t care. She _should_ care. She should feel pity for them. They were all so afraid, at the end, after Genna exploded into nothing and gave them a taste of what their own fates would be.

But she doesn’t feel anything.

 _“If you survive until dawn, they think something horrible is going to happen_ ,” her husband had said, with a wry twist of his lips. That was only hours ago, but it feels like days. She had just witnessed the accidental death of a maid and had begun to understand that the Lannisters had a very different definition of “Hide and Seek” than the rest of the world.

He had been amused by it, by the family’s belief in some ridiculous story.

But he must have believed in it, too, at least at the end. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have tried to help them.

“Sit down, Mrs. Lannister,” The Stranger says. Their voice is odd, hissing. She obeys, taking the seat at the other end of the table, because she doesn’t have the energy to resist.

“I’m not,” she says. She swallows. Her voice sounds like ground glass, barely above a whisper. She’s still so afraid to make any noise. “I’m not Mrs. Lannister. Not anymore.”

 _“I want a divorce_ ,” she’d said, taking off her wedding ring and flinging it at her husband’s chest. It was the last thing she said before he was gone.

“On the contrary. You’re a widow. Whatever your intentions, you are the last living Lannister. That means that all _this_ is yours.” The Stranger spreads their arms, amused by her growing horror. “The Lannister empire. All of the billions of dollars. The companies. The property. The gold. You won. These are your winnings.”

“I don’t want it.”

She speaks so suddenly that she takes The Stranger by surprise. She cannot see their face beneath the hood, but the long pause that follows her words feels like incredulity.

“You don’t want it,” they repeat, slowly.

“No. Take it back. Take all of it. They never should have had it in the first place.”

The Stranger nods, and Brienne feels relief tingling through her. _They approve._

“What do you want in return?” they ask.

“I don’t want anything. I want this to be over. I want…” _to forget_ , she almost says, but that’s not true. She doesn’t want to forget tonight. She looks down at her wedding ring, where it sits in the pile of gore that was once her husband. She took it off only minutes ago, but it feels like ages.

“Make a deal with me,” The Stranger says, like they’re humoring her. Or coaching her. “That’s how this works. You give me the Lannister fortune, and I give you something in return. An exchange.”

Brienne shakes her head. She starts to stand. She looks over her shoulder, to the door that leads out. Escape. She just wants to escape.

And then she sees it: the puddle of blood in the hallway.

Just the top of his head is visible from where she’s half-standing. Blonde curls matted down and turned crimson. He didn’t explode into nothing with the rest of his family; he was already dead when The Stranger came to collect the price of their failure. Brienne’s cheek still burns, and she remembers the pain of the bullet slicing open her face after it had already passed through his neck, when he tried to protect her.

“Wait,” she says aloud. She sits back down. She turns to face The Stranger, hardly daring to hope. “Jaime,” she says.

“Jaime?” The Stranger asks. They seem amused, as much as a faceless figure can be amused. “Not your husband?”

“No. The rest of them deserved what happened to them. But Jaime…he didn’t deserve to die.”

The Stranger regards her for a beat that stretches until it’s painful. Long enough to make Brienne wonder if she has made a mistake, or asked for too much.

But she has to try.

 _He_ did, after all. It’s what got him killed.

* * *

“Are you ready?”

Brienne turns from studying her reflection in the mirror. Tyrion is waiting in the doorway. He looks amazing, more tidied up than she’s ever seen him. She prefers him with his riot of brown-blonde curls and a messy beard, but it’s nice to see that he’s making an effort for his family. Aside from Jaime, it’s been years since he has spoken to any of them, and she knows that he chafes under their expectations and their traditions and their ideas of what is _right._ But maybe it’s good for him, too. He seems happier here than she had expected. More at home.

Which is maybe the problem. She’s known for a while now that Tyrion grew up rich, but she’d expected a nice suburban house with a pool and a three-car garage, not a palatial estate with its own hedge maze and fucking _tennis courts_. Brienne grew up well-off enough, at least before her father died, but she has never felt so much like an outsider. This past week of staying with the Lannisters as they prepare for the wedding has been one of the most uncomfortable of her life.

And now that the day is here, she’s not sure _how_ she feels.

“I don’t know,” she admits truthfully, and Tyrion smiles at her.

“Cold feet already?” he asks. 

“No. Not about you. I just…I didn’t think it would be such a…production.”

“This is small, for a Lannister wedding,” Tyrion laughs. There’s something cold and bitter in it. “My father and darling step-mother have been bullied to within an inch of their lives to keep it to only a hundred guests.”

“They’ve all been very nice so far,” Brienne says. Tyrion laughs at her for it, but she wasn’t joking. Olenna was the one who bought this beautiful dress for her, a lace and tulle concoction that she feels almost pretty in. It was Tyrion’s step-sister Margaery who did the makeup, hiding Brienne’s freckles and accentuating her eyes so perfectly that the mismatched features of the rest of her face hardly seem to matter. Even Tyrion’s sister, who Tyrion has always hated, found Brienne a beautiful pair of flats that prevent her from towering even _further_ over Tyrion. Tywin was downright cheery, welcoming her to the family with a smile. A rather cold smile, maybe, but he seemed genuinely glad that Tyrion was marrying, even if it’s only Brienne Tarth, who’s a full ladder’s worth of rungs away from the Lannisters, financially speaking.

“Just wait until they stop trying to butter you up,” Tyrion says. “Then they’ll start treating you like family.” His confidence falters for a moment, and he looks up at her, his mouth opening and closing several times before he finally says, “we don’t have to do this, you know.”

“What?”

“Get married. We can leave. Don’t feel like you have to…”

“For the last time, I _want_ to marry you,” Brienne says. “Don’t be ridiculous.” And Tyrion smiles, and nods, and she bends down to kiss him. There’s no escaping the height difference, or the difference in class, but they have weathered worse storms than a wedding in front of his snobby family, and she would not have him think for a moment that _he_ is the reason she’s feeling so off-balanced.

* * *

She has avoided Jaime successfully so far, but she is forced to stand beside him during the pictures. For some reason, the photographer wants a few of them together, and the entire family watches them carefully. Brienne wonders if any of them have any idea that she and Jaime used to be friendly. She might have even called them friends, once.

The photographer keeps making jokes. _Liven up a little! It’s a wedding, not a funeral!_ The Lannisters laugh politely along with him, but it only makes Brienne feel grimmer.

Jaime is stiff, his smile terrible and sarcastic and hateful whenever he flashes it in her direction. He looks awful up close. Bags under his eyes, and he wasn’t very careful with his shave. When he steps closer to take her elbow the way the photographer directs him, Brienne can smell bourbon on his breath, and she feels sorry for him. Both Lannister brothers have struggled with alcoholism, and Jaime was proud of his sobriety, back when he was still coming around to Brienne and Tyrion’s place regularly.

He was drunk the night he showed up alone, though. It was only a single day after Tyrion proposed, and Tyrion had taken Jaime out to dinner to give him the news. Tyrion didn’t return home for hours, but Jaime showed up, riotously drunk, pounding on her door at almost midnight and demanding to be let in.

“You can’t marry him,” he’d said, slurring his words, swaying until he had to grab the doorframe to keep steady. “You can’t. You don’t deserve my family.”

Brienne is the kind of person who is slow to anger. If it had been anyone else, it wouldn’t have even made a dent.

But it was _Jaime_ , who she liked, and who, she thought, liked _her_. He was always telling her that she was the best person he knew, and he was always telling her that she was good for Tyrion, and that he was proud of Tyrion for finding someone who was so kind and good and noble. He spent most weekends at their place. They’d laughed together over her attempts to teach him to cook for himself. The three of them went on trips together! They were _friends_!

 _Good enough to fuck, but not good enough to marry_ , Brienne had thought, later, after she’d pushed Jaime out into the hallway and slammed the door in his face. Tyrion had warned her that his family wouldn’t be quick to accept her, but she’d thought that Jaime would be the _exception._

She had thought she was past caring about people’s opinions of her, but she’d cried herself to sleep that night, and she had not spoken to Jaime since. Tyrion had been distant with him, too, avoiding Jaime’s damning gaze and brushing him off whenever Jaime tried to speak to him. Several times, Brienne had almost mentioned the new rift between the brothers, but she found that she did not want to talk about it. The disappointment, the betrayal, was still too fresh. Tyrion loved his brother, but that didn’t mean that Brienne had to do the same.

“It’s not too late to run,” Jaime says now, under his breath, barely looking at her. She refuses to meet his eyes. She clenches her jaw.

“I’m not running from anything,” she says, and she ignores the feeling of his eyes on the side of her head until Tywin chastises his eldest son for “hogging the bride”, and Jaime returns to his half-full bourbon glass, throwing it back, drinking the rest in one gulp.

* * *

It makes sense, later. Not _sense_ , sense, because there’s nothing about this situation that makes any amount of real sense. But it _clicks_.

“You knew,” she says to Tyrion, when he helps her hide in one of the servant’s corridors that run maze-like behind the walls of the house. “You knew what would happen.”

He knew that his family would want to have the wedding at Casterly Rock.

He knew that his family would insist on following the tradition of playing a game on the wedding night. Pulling a card from a deck and playing whichever of the games was written on it.

He knew there was a chance—however much he insists that it was a small chance, it was still always a _chance_ —that she would draw the Hide and Seek card.

He knew there was a chance that she would spend her wedding night fighting for her life, locked in this fucking mansion, hiding from his rich fucking family because they’re convinced that their ancestor made a deal with The Stranger himself and that if they _don’t_ catch and kill her by sunrise, something terrible is going to happen to them.

He knew there was a chance, and he didn’t tell her. When he told her about the game, _after the wedding_ , he made it seem like a silly little tradition. “Just this one last thing, and then you’ll officially be a Lannister,” he had said, self-deprecating, rolling his eyes. He hadn’t even seemed _nervous_. Just amused by his ridiculous family and their ridiculous traditions, and so he hadn’t prepared Brienne for _anything_. When she drew the Hide and Seek card, she’d noticed that the family was unusually somber about it, but still he hadn’t warned her. He’d gaped at the card, at his father, and said nothing. Jaime had slammed his glass down on the table after drinking the entirety of its contents, and he and Tyrion had glared at each other afterward, and still Tyrion did not speak.

He let her wander away into the house. He let her think they were playing a standard game of hide and seek. She figured she’d hide for a little bit, wait until she’d put in a good showing, and then let herself get caught so they could end the game.

It wasn’t until she witnessed Margaery shooting one of the maids, thinking the maid was Brienne, that Brienne understood what was happening. And even _then,_ it took Tyrion’s frantic explanations for it to all come together.

“They’re trying to kill me,” she says, more than once. “They’re trying to _kill me_.”

“I know.”

“You could have _warned_ me.”

“If I had warned you, if you knew what my family was really like, you would have left.” He looks at her so earnestly. His eyes tell her, his expression tells her, that her leaving was the worst thing he could fathom. She has never been wanted like that before, and it doesn’t sink in, yet, how terrible a thing it is, to have someone see you as their salvation above all else.

“They all knew,” she says. “Margaery. Olenna. Cersei. _Jaime._ ”

“Every time someone joins the family, we all have to play. But most of the time, it’s just…fucking _children’s_ games. The Hide and Seek card is the only one where…well. _This_ happens.” There’s a hysterical note to Tyrion’s voice. A kind of pleading for her to understand why he didn’t mention it before. “Olenna had to play chess to marry my father. Robert had to play Old Maid for the honor of marrying Cersei.” He laughs bitterly, his hands shaking as he runs them through his hair. “He would have been an easy one to find.”

“How could you not have told me?” Brienne asks again. She truly can’t understand it.

Tyrion just watches her warily, waiting for her to say something else. She stares back at him, waiting for him to _do_ something.

“Well, you wanted to get married,” he says finally, and she cannot tell if he’s making a joke or actually trying to blame her.

* * *

_If I had warned you…you would have left_.

His words echo in her mind, later, when she’s running from his family, trying everything to get out of the house and get help. When he said the words to her, she hadn’t been angry. She’d liked it, almost, the sad sort of desperation in his voice. Tyrion said that he would shut down the security system that’s keeping the doors locked, and she had been so grateful for the thought of escape that she hadn’t even thought to question his words. But the more time passes, the angrier she is.

She could _die_ tonight, and it’s all because Tyrion was afraid that she would leave him.

Was that really more important than her life?

If he loved her, if he _truly_ loved her, wouldn’t he just want her to be safe?

* * *

She’s hiding in the study, leaning back against the wall, just trying to catch her breath. Jaime enters so quietly that she doesn’t have any time to hide. Just stands there, hunched and defeated. He looks at her with open, drunken surprise. At the skirt she tore the bottom from so it would stop getting caught on things. At the converse sneakers she slipped into after she realized that this isn’t just a game. He sighs, and he turns away from her.

“I just came to get a drink,” he says. Brienne is tense as she watches him pull out two glasses. He gets a bottle out of the cabinet behind Tywin’s desk. The good stuff, then. He pours both glasses, and still she watches. He turns and offers her one.

“Jaime,” she begs him.

“I know,” he says simply. She takes the glass from his hand, mostly just to have something to hold. She rarely drinks, but it helps, to sip it. To feel it burning in her throat on the way down. She hates the taste. She knows she has to keep a level head. Jaime doesn’t seem overly concerned with that; he downs his entire glass and immediately pours another.

“Jaime, you have to help me.”

He closes his eyes, and he shakes his head.

“This doesn’t end well for you,” he tells her. “But it’s not going to be me who does it.”

“ _Jaime_ ,” she pleads. “For Tyrion, at least. Please.”

“This _is_ for Tyrion,” Jaime says. He turns away. Faces the fire, and the portrait of some Lannister ancestor that hangs over it.

“I thought…” she starts, but it sounds too stupid to finish. _I thought we were friends_.

“I’ll give you a ten second head-start,” he says. He still can’t look at her.

“Jaime, please.”

“One one-thousand,” he says, slumping in the uncomfortable chair in front of Tywin’s desk. He takes a gulp of his drink. “One and a half one-thousand.”

Brienne runs.

She’s all the way through the servant’s corridor before she hears his wrecked voice shouting, “she’s in the study!”

* * *

“Why is Jaime the only one you talk to?” she’d asked Tyrion once, not long after meeting Jaime for the first time. He was likeable, then, Jaime. Newly sober, and proud of himself for sticking with it. Charming, handsome. A lot like his brother, though Tyrion seemed to have a wellspring of insecurities that kept him halfway bitter about their differences. Brienne knew enough about those that she kept her feelings on Jaime’s jawline and smile to herself.

“Jaime’s the only one who ever loved me,” Tyrion had replied, shocking her.

“That can’t be true.”

“Oh, my mother might have. I don’t remember. She didn’t live very long after having me. And Olenna and her daughter have always been kind. My father thinks I’m a disappointment. I walked out on the family, you know, and that’s _humiliating_ for a man like him to endure. And the less I say about my sister, the better. But Jaime…Jaime has always loved me. Always protected me. He would never let anything happen to me. Family is the most important thing in the world to Jaime, and though the rest of them consider me beneath their notice…not him.” There was a kind of fevered pride in Tyrion’s voice, and Brienne was so _envious_. To have the unconditional, unquestioning love of someone like that…

“You’re very lucky to have him, I think,” she said, and Tyrion nodded.

“I am,” he replied.

* * *

After the first hour, Brienne has no idea where Tyrion is. She heard him shouting, at one point, and she thinks that his family have restrained him somewhere. He got the doors open, though, and they haven’t been locked again, so Brienne is able to get out. But the butler, Qyburn, hunts her down, and knocks her out, and somehow gets her into the backseat of his car to drive her back up to the house. She fights back, because she has no other choice. She isn’t even sure where she’s going to go. The Lannisters live in the middle of fucking nowhere. She’s bleeding from a head wound. She doesn’t remember getting cut, but the blood is all over her dress and her hands, and she can feel a stinging, burning pain on her back from where she got caught on the fence when she scaled it.

She never knew before that she had such an instinct for survival, but she does. Every time she is backed into a corner, she bursts out of it, snarling like a wounded animal, attacking the ones who have cornered her. She has been injured, humiliated, devastated, and still she has continued. She doesn’t know where her husband is. She doesn’t know if she cares. _He should have told me. He should have told me. He knew_.

She manages to cause Qyburn to crash and flip the car, and she knows he’s dead as soon as she crawls out from under it, her wedding dress—torn and dirty now—getting caught on the broken glass of the window she has to crawl through. Her head is ringing, her balance shot, and all she can think is _run, run, run_.

She straightens, and Jaime is standing in front of her, somehow all the way out here in the woods, wide-eyed, more sober than he was when she last saw him. He looks like he regrets the lack of alcohol in his hands. He’s holding an enormous rifle, pointed straight at her.

“Jaime,” she sobs. He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Jaime, please. You don’t want to kill me.”

She doesn’t recognize the person she has become. She always thought that she would face her death, whenever it came, with the same steely pragmatism with which she has faced every other tragedy in her life. But now that it’s here, she has done everything to stave it off. Maybe it’s just the unfairness of it, the way that it makes her angry down to her _atoms_ that she’s amounting to nothing more than a sacrifice so that a bunch of rich people don’t lose their money. She will do anything to survive this, survive them. It’s a startling thought. It’s a powerful one. She refuses to let Jaime avoid her eyes. She _knows_ him. Understands him now. He hates this. He’s the only one of them who might help her.

“I don’t,” Jaime admits. His eyes are glimmering in the moonlight that filters through the trees, and he curses, lowering the gun. “I told him. I _told_ him not to marry you.”

“You tried to warn me,” she reminds him. _You don’t deserve this family_. The odd, desperate tilt to his words. The way he had turned to her before the wedding, when they were taking pictures. _It’s not too late to run_. “You should have _told_ me.”

“I know,” Jaime admits. His voice breaks. “I’m sorry. I told him I wouldn’t, but I should’ve. I just…”

He pulls a flask from his pocket and takes an enormous gulp. Brienne’s fingers twitch, wanting to grab the gun away from him, but he’s watching her too closely. Most of the Lannisters are nothing to her. Physically and emotionally both. She’d kill Jaime if she had to, but he’d be more of a struggle, even drunk. With her as injured as she is…they might be an even match.

“Not sorry enough to help me,” she points out, and he flinches. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Tyrion was supposed to be the good one,” he says. “The one who got away. If anyone was going to save you, it would have been him.”

“Jaime,” she begs.

“I was always the one they expected to carry on the legacy. But I’m not…” He trails off, bitterly.

“Selfish?” she prompts, and Jaime flinches again.

“I didn’t mean that,” he says.

“But it was. Selfish. He married me without telling me. He knew there was a chance, and he…”

“He loves you,” Jaime says. “He says you…you make him a better person, and I agree.”

“A better person would never have married me,” Brienne snarls, and Jaime falls silent. She reads his agreement in the slump of his shoulders. “You’re a better man than you think.” It’s half manipulation, sure. An attempt to sway him. But it’s true, too. She sees him differently now. Tyrion loves his brother, but he’s had his moments of judgmental dismissal, too. And from what Tyrion has said, the whole family considers Jaime a fuckup. Never marrying. Never doing his duty to the family company. In and out of rehab. “You’re not like them,” she says. Jaime’s years of dependence on alcohol. His dry, cruel streak of humor. The hate reflected in his eyes every time he talks about his family. Brienne can see it all now. Call it adrenaline or terror or whatever, she feels like every nerve ending is alive with understanding. “Tyrion said your family is everything to you. But you’re not like them at all.”

“I wish you were right,” Jaime says.

“I _am_ right. I know you.”

He looks at her, and she can see the boy he was and the man he has unwillingly become, struggling behind the haze of alcohol and self-hate. Something burns there, deeply, some defiance that hasn’t yet been bled out of him, and she knows that if she can only reach him, can only make him understand…

“When I was nine years old, Aunt Genna got married,” he says, distantly. “I took Tyrion, and I wanted to hide, so he didn’t have to see. Genna’s husband drew the Hide and Seek card.” He watches her carefully for a reaction. “He found me and Tyrion. He was already hurt. And I screamed to let everyone know where he was.” Brienne’s face feels numb. She doesn’t know what expression she’s making. “They killed him,” Jaime finishes, savagely proud. “To save themselves.”

“You were a child.”

“I’m not a child anymore,” he replies. “But it’s still you or them.”

“Us,” Brienne reminds him. The numbness is spreading. She knows she’ll have to fight him.

“What?” he asks.

“ _You or them_ , you said. It’s _you or us_. Since you’re so determined to be one of them.”

Jaime sighs, and he steps forward.

“I really am sorry,” he says. And then he hits her with the butt of the rifle.

* * *

She wakes on the table in the trophy room, where she drew the Hide and Seek card, tied too tightly to hope to escape. The Lannister family, minus Tyrion, are around her, wearing absurd crimson robes, their hoods pulled up over their heads. Brienne wants to laugh, strangely. Not sob. Not scream for her life. She wants to laugh at them, and how ridiculous they are, and how insane all this is. _Look at yourselves,_ she wants to say. _You can’t be serious._

She can’t do anything. Her head’s still swimming, dizzy and scattered and empty of anything but primal fear, and she cannot stop staring at Jaime, beneath the hood. He’s pale, and his hands are shaking, but he doesn’t look away.

The family passes around an ornate goblet that they all drink from, one after another. Robert, blustering and overwhelmed by the events of the night, nearly spills the whole thing from nerves. Cersei sneers at him in disgust before she snatches it away. Margaery simpers apologetically down at Brienne before following suit. Olenna is grave and unforgiving, Aunt Genna triumphant, Tywin cold. Tyrion…she doesn’t know where Tyrion is. She wonders what they did to him, but only in a vague sort of way. She doesn’t think she _cares_.

And then the entire family is vomiting up blood, and Brienne doesn’t understand. Jaime is untying her arms and legs, and she doesn’t understand. He’s grabbing her by the elbow and leading her out of the room, urging her to hurry, and her legs nearly buckle beneath her from exhaustion and shock, and _still_ she doesn’t understand. The family try to stop them, but they don’t get very far, hobbled by their sudden sickness, and Jaime doesn’t let her stop moving for even a moment.

“You are not my son,” Tywin manages to shout as they’re leaving the room, like he thinks it will draw Jaime back. “If you think you are inheriting a _cent_ after this…” but he interrupts himself with another gag and torrent of vomited blood, and Jaime laughs wildly as he pulls Brienne out of the room.

“You poisoned them,” she says.

“They’ll be fine. I just gave them enough to make them sick,” he replies. There is a brightness in him that she hasn’t seen in since Tyrion proposed. A gleam of fire. He’s made his decision, and he seems free of whatever was tormenting him before. “My father was creeping up on us, out in the woods. I had to make it look real. But I spiked the cup as soon as I could. Fuck. I can’t believe it worked.” He laughs again, and she laughs with him, giddy and elated and _right_. She was _right_. All those nights spent hanging out with him. All those long conversations they shared. She wasn’t imagining it. He is her friend, and more than that, he is a good person. She tries to thank him. Jaime’s shrugging out of his robe and urging her faster, pulling her along, not wanting to hear her gratitude. There’s a thundering of footsteps from somewhere down the hall. Someone from the family has recovered enough to chase after them. They duck into the foyer, and Jaime pulls her to hide behind the staircase. They crouch there, listening to their pursuer run by.

In the quiet that follows, Brienne watches Jaime. She’s more able to admit to herself now that she has always liked him. As dry and cutting as he could be, he was always kind to her, and she had always been able to see how much he loved his brother. His hands are still shaking, and she grabs one of them so that he’ll look at her.

“I knew you would help me,” she says. She hopes that her faith in him can give him some comfort.

“I didn’t,” Jaime replies, and she smiles at him.

When they’re sure the coast is clear, Jaime tugs her along by their joined hands, back into the hallway.

“When you get outside, just keep running. It’s less than an hour until dawn, and it’ll be over then. I’ll get Tyrion out. If nothing happens to us when the sun comes up, he’ll…”

“Jaime.”

The voice comes from behind them.

They both stop. Jaime releases her hand, and he puts his arm out as he turns, making sure that Brienne is behind him. She stands taller than him by almost a head, but Cersei would have to be a hell of a shot to get Brienne without hitting Jaime too. 

Jaime’s twin is standing only feet away from them, her lips stained red from vomiting up blood. She holds a pistol in her unwavering grip, and her eyes are wide and damning as she stares at Jaime. There is something half hatred and half devastation in them. Betrayed.

“Cersei,” he says, holding out his hand to her, trying to calm her.

“You know what will happen if we don’t complete the ritual.”

“No, I don’t,” Jaime reasons. He reaches his other hand back, finding Brienne, trying to push her toward the door, but Brienne doesn’t think she can leave while he’s still in danger. It wouldn’t be right, after he poisoned his whole family for her. “No one does. It’s a _story_.”

“It’s a curse,” Cersei insists. “ _Robert_ had to go through it. Olenna, too. We all know what we’re getting into. You can’t keep protecting Tyrion from his choices.”

“Not all of us are _hoping_ our spouses draw the Hide and Seek card,” Jaime says. Cersei sneers at him.

“Get out of the way, Jaime.” She takes a step closer, but Jaime doesn’t budge.

“No.”

“You’d let me die? You’d let us _all_ die, for her?” Cersei asks. Jaime wavers, but Brienne knows. She doesn’t have a single doubt.

“We all deserve to die,” Jaime says. “ _All_ of us, for keeping this shit alive.”

“Even Tyrion?” Cersei tries. Jaime heaves a sigh, unwilling to say it.

He believes in it, Brienne realizes. Tyrion had laughed it off and acted as if his family was insane for thinking the story was true, but Jaime _believes_ that something bad will happen to them if she survives the night. And still he’s trying to save her.

“Cersei,” Jaime says, apologetic. The gun goes off. The bullet slices clean through the side of Jaime’s neck and skims up the side of Brienne’s face, leaving a burning trail of ruined flesh before continuing on to the ceiling. Brienne doesn’t scream. She is too shocked, too surprised, too angry for that. Jaime hits the floor, and Brienne lunges over him. Cersei’s hands are shaking so badly that she drops the gun, and Brienne knocks her out with one punch.

She knows she doesn’t have long. The rest of the family will be on them soon. But she can’t leave him. She goes to his side when she’s sure Cersei isn’t going to be getting back up. He’s holding onto the wound in his neck, but there’s blood bubbling up from between his lips, and she knows it’s too late.

“Go,” he manages to say, and she nods. Tears drip from her lashes. She doesn’t feel numb anymore.

“Thank you,” she sobs. “I’m sorry.” She wishes she had more time. She wishes she could stay with him. He deserves better than this, than this family, than his whole life. But it’s too late.

“Go,” he says again, and so she does.

* * *

Well, she tries to.

Olenna catches her and shoots her through the hand with a crossbow bolt before she can get out. She’s surprisingly strong, Olenna, and they tumble into the dining room, grappling with each other. Brienne spends so long trying to escape without having to hurt her that Olenna nearly stabs her in the eye with the broken-off shaft of the bolt.

“You’ll never be a part of this family,” Olenna says, and Brienne loses control. For the first time in her life, maybe. It’s just…rage. A hot, skittering rage throughout her body, and she grabs the nearest thing she can find and brings it crashing down on Olenna’s head. She later remembers that she was screaming. _Fuck your fucking family_. She doesn’t want them. She doesn’t _need_ them. She isn’t like Margaery or Olenna, who _wanted_ to be here. She isn’t like Robert, who apparently needed the political connections. She just wanted to marry a man who loved her, and who she loved in return. Was that so horrible? Was that a crime deserving of all this?

She stops screaming only when Olenna is dead. She stands up, staggering over to the table, unable to think about running yet, though she knows she has to. She turns to the doorway, and Tyrion is there.

It has been hours since she saw him last. Hours since she loved him. She _did_ , she remembers. She loved him so much. She couldn’t wait to be married to him. But now she can see him clearly. He stands there, looking horrified, tears glimmering in his eyes.

“Brienne,” he says. She stays hunched on the other side of the table, watching him warily. He looks down at Olenna’s caved-in head. “Jaime. He’s…”

“I know,” she says. “Cersei shot him.”

He nods, trying to wipe his blood-stained hands on his pants. She does feel pity for him, in a remote corner of her mind. She knows how well he loved Jaime. Even if he didn’t love _her_ correctly. Even if he should have loved her better. She knows he loved his brother.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and he shakes his head. There is a mournful slump to his shoulders that she doesn’t like. A defeated air that she’s never seen from him before.

“You were never going to stay with me after this, were you?” he asks. Tyrion always has so much humor in his tone. Maybe it’s not a surprise that some of it still comes through even though he seems so hollow. She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t nod, or shake her head, or even grimace in acknowledgement, but she knows it must show on her face somehow. Or maybe it’s just that Tyrion has always been clever, even though he’s been blind. Maybe he’s just clever enough to understand. “I thought you were my chance,” he says. Still so hollow. Brienne can scarcely breathe for fear, though she doesn’t know quite why, yet. It’s an instinctive fear. Bone-deep and shattering.

“Tyrion,” she says.

“I thought…” he starts. And he shakes his head. His eyeline tracks just slightly to the side, and too late Brienne sees Aunt Genna creeping in from the door in the side of the room, holding the enormous axe she chose as her weapon at the beginning of the night. She uses the handle of it to slam into Brienne’s temple.

* * *

They don’t even bother to move her back to the trophy room, where they tried to sacrifice her the first time. Maybe she’s too heavy for them to lift, with both Jaime and Olenna dead, or maybe they’re afraid to waste any more time. Cersei is sobbing about how she didn’t _mean_ to kill Jaime. Tywin is pale, almost gray, as he tightens the rope on Brienne’s neck. Margaery is trying to tie Brienne’s hand, but her own hands are shaking as she sobs for her dead grandmother. Robert, at Brienne’s feet, has vomit down the front of his shirt, and he looks increasingly terrified. Like he thought they were playing a game this whole night and only now understands that they’re really going to kill her.

Tyrion stands at the head of the table, the sacrificial dagger held above his head, ready to plunge it into Brienne’s chest. Genna stands beside him, lending her support.

There is a single moment in which Brienne wants to admit defeat. Give up. Let it happen. The sight of her own husband standing above her, ready to kill her, when his brother was willing to die for her…she almost can’t take it. It almost shatters her completely. But it’s only for a moment, and then she is angry. So blindingly, hatingly angry as Tyrion begins to lead whatever nonsense High Valyrian chant they think is going to save them from The Stranger.

They should have used more rope. When Tyrion brings the dagger down, aiming for her heart, Brienne pulls as hard as she can, and she feels the ropes fraying and breaking on the edge of the table. Margaery screams, and Brienne yanks her whole body to the side, and the dagger slices into her arm instead of killing her. She bucks up, grabbing it with her other hand and cutting herself free. Robert releases her legs when she starts to kick. Cersei hides behind him. Tywin grabs for her, but Brienne slashes out with the knife, and he backs away, and she rolls off the table and backs herself into a defensible corner. Genna looks ready to carve her open with the axe, ritual or no ritual, but another wild swipe from Brienne has _her_ backing off, too.

Brienne screams, then. This horrible, wordless scream. The Lannisters all back off, watching her warily, afraid of her knife. She will fight all of them, _gut_ all of them, if she has to. She has no chance, but she _will_.

And then Genna freezes, a slash of light falling over her right eye as she backs away. Her head turns. Her mouth falls open.

“Look!” she cries, and she flings open the curtains.

The slash of light expands, grows, fills the room. Sunrise.

“We’re too late,” Margaery gasps. Cersei begins to back away.

“No, no, no,” she says. Tyrion cringes away from the light. Tywin sinks against the sideboard at the back of the room, looking down at his dead wife. Only Robert stands still, waiting. Seconds tick by. Brienne doesn’t let her guard down, spinning to make sure that they all stay out of this corner of the dining room that she has claimed for herself. The chair at the head of the table, which the Lannisters supposedly keep reserved for The Stranger, glimmers golden in the light.

Nothing happens.

“I told you it was fake,” Robert says, heaving a relieved sigh and slumping down into one of the chairs. “Didn’t I tell you? Load of nonsense. Deals with _The_ _Stranger_ , really.”

Relief passes through most of their faces. Margaery and Cersei and Tywin in turn. Tyrion stands shocked, hunched, breathing hard, looking lost. Knowing he made the wrong choice. Only Genna hasn’t softened. She turns to Brienne, a glimmer of hate in her eyes. _My husband died_ , Brienne can almost hear her saying. _Why should_ she _live?_

“I don’t care,” Genna says aloud. “The bitch dies!”

She lunges with the axe, and Brienne rises to meet her with the knife, and then Genna Lannister explodes like a blood-filled water balloon thrown against a brick wall.

It goes rather quickly after that. The other Lannisters all try different ways to survive. Robert starts praying to the Warrior. Tywin tries to shout at The Stranger that they can still kill Brienne. Margaery screams and runs from the room. Cersei begs The Stranger’s empty chair, trying to make another deal, a different deal. All of them meet the same end, each death as absurd and sudden as the others, and Brienne begins to laugh. It’s horrible. It’s the worst thing she has ever seen. She can’t help it. _It was real. It was real, this whole time_.

Tyrion is the last to go. He doesn’t bother trying to appeal to The Stranger. He appeals to _her_ , instead. Brienne.

 _I love you_ , he tries.

 _I’m sorry_ , he tries.

 _You make me better. You’ll see. I can be better_.

Brienne isn’t sure it would work even if she _did_ forgive him. He isn’t her soul to save. She feels a passing sting of pity, but it’s nothing more than that. None of this would have happened if he had just told her from the start, and she sees him so much clearer now than she did before. This wasn’t love.

She takes off her wedding ring.

“I want a divorce,” she says, and she flings it at his chest, and her husband explodes into nothing.

* * *

After she tries to make the deal, she staggers from the dining room. Jaime is still dead on the floor, his eyes open and sightless, gazing up at the ceiling, his hands pressed to his wound. She supposes she will cry for him later. She doesn’t think she can, just yet.

She’s not surprised The Stranger didn’t respond to her attempt at negotiations. Whatever form the Seven Hells actually take, it must be difficult to bring a man back to life. Even for all the gold in the world.

Behind her, the fire bursts out into the hallway, but she doesn’t look back. The whole house will be consumed in the flames. She’d made sure of that, before she left the dining room.

She gets outside, and the sunlight nearly blinds her. She laughs again, still drenched in the blood of her former family. She makes it only a few steps down the stone staircase before she sits, heavily, stretching out her tired legs. She can hear sirens approaching. She supposes she will have to come up with some explanation. She’s never been very good at lying.

It doesn’t matter yet. All that matters is that she survived.

A shadow falls over her, and she cranes her neck to look back up the steps. The sunlight turns him into a silhouette that looms above her, and for a moment she thinks it’s The Stranger again. Even in that moment, she isn’t afraid. But her eyes adjust, and it’s Jaime. Blood still on his neck, down the front of his shirt. Still in the corners of his mouth. She moves aside the ruined tulle of her skirt to let him sit, and he does, thumping down beside her with just as much exhaustion as she did.

The side of his neck has a ghastly scar, but beneath the drying blood, it’s healed. He spits blood onto the stone steps in front of them.

“What did you give him?” he asks. He doesn’t quite look at her. His hands are still twitching and shaking, like they’re looking for a drink to hold. But his voice is clear, intent. Alive.

“Your family’s fortune,” she answers, and he laughs. When he looks at her, his smile is bright, glittering. His face is streaked with tears, and somehow she understands that he saw everything. He was dead, but he knows exactly what happened afterward. He looks too sorry for anything else to be true.

“Why me?” he asks.

“Tyrion would have killed me.”

“He loved you. He…”

“No, he _wanted_ to love me. He wanted to be the person he thought I was, and he thought that by loving me, he could possess that. I understand it now. I was blind.” Jaime starts to interrupt, but she shakes her head, and she reaches over and grabs his knee to stop him talking. “I know he was your brother. I know you loved him. I did too. But we were _both_ blind. You kept telling me Tyrion was better than the rest of them, but he wasn’t. He was one of them. Not just at the end, but…he thought like them. He was always going to choose what he did. He just…tried to believe he wouldn’t. Maybe he wanted to be better, but he didn’t try hard enough.”

“I tried,” Jaime chokes out. “I tried to help him. I tried to protect him.”

“I know. You were always going to be the one to burn it down.”

Jaime laughs again, and it’s a pathetic sound, clogged up with tears, but Brienne is glad to hear it. Glad to feel the heat of him beneath the palm of her hand, and glad to hear his breath beside her.

“What now?” he asks.

“We figure out what to tell the Goldcloaks,” she says. “And then we get the hell out of here.”

“We?” he asks. Weak, and a little bit hopeful, and so like a child for a moment.

“ _We_ ,” she promises, and he covers her hand on his knee with his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a kinda dumb final note about one of the lines near the end (which contains SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE):
> 
> I added Brienne telling Tyrion what happened to Jaime because I read some discourse about the movie that really bugged me. I LOVED the portrayal of Alex as a trashbag in disguise who turned on Grace after he realized that she wasn't going to be "his" any longer. Early in the movie, when he says that he didn't want to risk her leaving him, I was TERRIFIED that I was meant to read that as romantic instead of selfish. Alex's turn at the end was PERFECT, because it was already set up. Her leaving him is the worst thing he could imagine happening, and that's why he goes back over to his family. BUT I saw a lot of people reading it as Alex thinking that Grace was the one who shot Daniel, and THAT was why he turned on her. I much prefer the reading that he was ALWAYS a trashbag, so I decided I needed to take that "excuse" away from Tyrion lmao.


End file.
